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10/19/2009

Private Parasites on the NHS

In the light of recent interest in the treatment of NHS staff by private clinics, I have a question which someone might be able to answer, and for which I have been seeking an answer for a long time.How many of its own staff does the private health industry actually train?The implications are obvious. Training staff is a very expensive business, especially health staff. If BUPA and the rest are allowed to simply poach staff trained at the taxpayers expense, we are subsidising the Gout'n'Bunion trade to an alarming degree, and the NHS patients are suffering real hardhsip to pay for the luxury and profits of a parasitic, profit-driven, exclusive health hotel chain.Surely the proper policy would be to impose a training levy on every member of staff trained by the taxpayer.Whether that would cause BUPA to shrivel back to its cave in Harley Street with its core clientelle of ex-majors and 1930's dowager countesses I really couldn't say. But then I couldn't care either.But as a taxpayer, I care a lot. and as someone who will get sick one day I care even more.Strangely, those who make the most noise about tax, the redneck tories and other weirdoes, don't care how much of the decent, hard-earned British tax is lavished on these parasites. Why? Because like all elitists, they are prepared to see the majority suffer to preserve, or even enhance the luxury of the few. Their objective is not to reduce the amount of suffering, but to increase the pleasure for those aty the peak of the hierarchy. It is their so-called Doctrine of Excellence, which is always at the expense of decent standards for everyone else.